Tag Archives: illegal fishing

Uncle Sam, however, seems to be much more of a pushover than old Saint Nick ever was. Getting on the naughty list for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing requires monumental stupidity, and really all you have to do is say please to get back on the nice list. I don’t know about you, but at my house Santa’s naughty list is long and it’s a semi-permanent designation.

NOAA released its naughty list last week. Ten countries who have engaged in illegal fishing practices, shark finning, or the bycatch of protected resources. OK, let’s dish. This is the fun part. They are: Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, Italy, Mexico, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Tanzania, and Venezuela. These“naughty nations” violated rules ranging from banned drift-nets, to quota violations, to discarding plastic trash at sea.

There are some promising stories stuck in this report. Columbia, in an attempt to regain a positive citation (and continue to be able to export fish to the US) revoked several commercial fishing licenses and kept those boats at dock. They get a big wah-wah for landing on the list again this year for separate violations. There are also some predictably overwhelming pieces. Ecuador, for example, boasts a laundry list of vessels and illegal activities with very little in the way of planned corrections. In a case like this, the US Government will work with Ecuador to correct the problems, or they will have to export their catches elsewhere.

In some ways this fight seems hopeless. The Earth’s ocean is a huge place, and the violations listed in these reports are likely the tip of the ice-continent of illegal fishing. But, if these reports can increase the compliance of other countries with fishing laws even a little bit, there will be benefits to our domestic fishermen and to everyone who buys seafood in the US. As the second largest importer of seafood on Earth, leveraging that power for sustainable fisheries and a healthy ocean seems like the least we can be doing. The next step is a full traceability program so that we will know what our seafood is and where it came from. Until then, let’s choose domestic seafood when we can. If you’ve been buying all of your fish from Ghana, this is a good opportunity to reform your ways. You never know, Santa may be checking his list against Uncle Sam’s, and you’ll end up with a stocking full of Tanzanian mussels.

How: Last month, a US Coast Guard ship from South Padre Island came across an illegal, five-mile long gillnet full of dead sharks 17 miles north of the US-Mexico border. Among the casualties were 225 blacktip, 109 bonnethead, and 11 bull sharks. No arrests were made since the boat that set the net was not found.

The Story: “Gill nets indiscriminately kill any fish or marine mammal it snares across miles of ocean, often leaving much of the catch spoiled by the time it is hauled in,” said Coast Guard Commander Daniel Deptula. Because of their destructive impact on fish, turtles and marine mammals, gillnets have been banned in Texas state waters since 1981; however, the Coast Guard recovered 49 miles of them in 2012 and the numbers are on the rise. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department reports that incidents of pirate fishing with gillnets off the coast have doubled since 2011. “The seizures are far past any other year in my 16-year career,” said Sgt. James Dunks said.

The Coast Guard reports that the illegal nets come from Mexican fisherman crossing into the US’s Exclusive Economic Zone to fish because the Mexican fish stocks are so depleted. “Well you get too many people fishing for the same thing, they’re not catching as much, so they’re going to search new territory to try to find more fish,” Dunks said. The growing fear is that pirate fishing by gillnets will cause our Gulf of Mexico fish stocks to resemble those of our neighbor to the south. The Coast Guard believes that the sharks were destined to be finned, a practice where only the fins are cut off the fish to be sold while the rest of the carcass is tossed back into the sea.

What We Can Do: A reliable system of seafood traceability would help consumers to avoid pirate fish and put pressure on fishermen and fishing companies worldwide to supply legal, sustainable seafood for US tables. Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated fishing (IUU) doesn’t just happen in remote corners of the Pacific; it happens here at home and affects YOUR fish. For now, support local fishermen that are involved in positive fishing practices by doing your homework and asking questions about your favorite seafood.

UPDATE: In a separate incident, a Mexican fishing boat captain has just plead guilty to charges of failing to “heave to” after ramming a US Coast Guard ship that caught the boat fishing illegally in Texas waters; the captain performed the maneuvers in an effort to flee and escape prosecution.

Where: International waters in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, known as the “Pacific Commons”

How: According to the Jakarta Globe, Greenpeace has filmed fishing vessels in the Pacific Commons engaged in large-scale, illegal transfers of tuna. Vessels registered in Indonesia and the Philippines were spotted transferring tuna to a vessel registered to Cambodia. The Cambodian vessel’s hull, which is the size of a basketball court, was knee-deep in yellowfin and skipjack tuna that was probably headed for the canned tuna market. None of the four boats are authorized by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), who manages fishing rights for tuna in the area (bordered by red on the below map), to either fish or transfer fish in the Pacific Commons. The “fish laundering” occurred just outside Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone, and took place in an effort to hide where the tuna was actually caught and by which vessel.

The Story: Pirate fishing in the Western and Central Pacific is unfortunately a common occurrence. About 60% of the world’s tuna is caught in these waters, but few fishing vessels bother with licenses and it is estimated that almost half the fish are caught illegally. Of those vessels which do have licenses, many under-report their catch or falsify information about where the tuna was caught.

What We Can Do: John Hocevar, Oceans Campaign Director for Greenpeace USA, advises, “In order for people to be confident that their canned tuna is legal, never mind sustainable, we need stronger traceability standards so retailers can track seafood from where it is caught all the way to the shelf.”